01_-_The_Alchemyst

Was there anything he could do?
In just over twenty-four hours, his life—and his sister’s life too—had
changed utterly and incomprehensibly. What he had once believed to be
merely stories now turned out to be versions of the truth. Myth had become
history, legends had become facts. When Scatty had revealed earlier that the
mysterious Danu Talis was also called Atlantis, he had almost laughed in her
face. To him, Atlantis had always been a fairy tale. But if Scathach and
Hekate and the Morrigan and Bastet were real, then so was Danu Talis. And
so his parents’ life work—archaeology—was suddenly worthless.
Josh knew deep down that he had also lost his twin, the constant in his
life, the one person he could always count on. She had changed in ways he
could not even begin to comprehend. Why hadn’t he been Awakened too? He
should have insisted that Hekate Awaken him first. What would it be like to
have those powers? The only thing he could compare it to was being a
superhero. Even when Sophie’s newly Awakened senses were making her
sick, he was jealous of her abilities.
From the corner of his eye, Josh became aware that a man had sat down
on one of the other edges of the fountain, but he ignored him. He absently
picked at a broken fragment of one of the blue tiles that ran around the
fountain.
What was he going to do?
And the answer was always the same: what could he do?
“Are you a victim too?”
It took him a moment before he realized that the figure sitting to his right
was talking to him. He started to stand up, the golden rule with creeps being
that you never responded, and you never—ever—entered into any
conversation with them.
“It seems we are all victims of Nicholas Flamel.”
Startled, Josh looked up…and found he was staring at Dr. John Dee, the
man he’d hoped never to see again. The last time he’d seen Dee had been in
the Shadowrealm. Then, he’d held the sword Excalibur in his hands. Now he
sat facing him, looking out of place in his impeccably tailored gray suit. Josh